


I Want To Go Back To The Start (I Want To Get It Right)

by CorvusCorvidae



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, especially anya and octavia, everyone is a little shit, slight mention of homophobia, sort of, the lovers is implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5666428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvusCorvidae/pseuds/CorvusCorvidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Black eyes and bruised lips were their way of saying hello, and that animosity didn't change as the years passed. </p>
<p>Shame that they realised too late what might have been, what could have been, if only they'd done things differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want To Go Back To The Start (I Want To Get It Right)

The first time Dr. Gustus Woods had to attend Mount Weather Elementary, he was checking his watch, wondering how long it would take to get back across town to make the consultations scheduled later that day. The phone call had been vague, just requesting a parent come down to attend a meeting, due to some kind of ‘situation’ with his daughter. 

It hadn’t sounded particularly important, and as he drove over, he wondered if it was about Lexa’s mounting extracurricular activities, or whether she was sick. In which case, he’d need to call his sister and see if she could take Lexa for the afternoon. He really needed to get back to work. 

All of those thoughts went out the window the second he saw his daughter’s face, however.

She was seated outside the main office, hands curled in her lap, looking straight ahead, poised and composed. There was nothing out the ordinary, except for the bruising around her eye, and the busted lip. 

“What happened?” he asked, picking up his speed to a slight jog, and leaning down, pulling his daughter closer. 

Lexa Woods stood tall, jaw clenched, avoiding her father’s eye. At eight years old, she knew she wasn’t going to get out of this situation without getting in a little bit of trouble. That little would become a lot when her father saw the other girl’s face, though. 

“Lexa, who did this? What happened? Where’s your-” the questions kept coming and coming, while Lexa kept her mouth shut. 

“Dr. Woods, do you mind coming in for a moment?” the headmaster asked, approaching from his office. 

“What happened to my daughter's face?” Was his first question, before he even took a step towards the office. “Has she seen a nurse?” 

“Yes, yes; Dr. Woods, Lexa has seen our nurse,” Headmaster Wallace was quick to reassure. “May we speak in my office, Dr Woods? Lexa, if you wait here, we shall call you in, in a moment.” 

“Are you going to be okay here?” Gus asked, ignoring the Headmaster. Lexa didn’t hesitate to nod, yes, she’d be fine, and with a sigh, her father headed inside. 

The details that followed were somewhat vague; Lexa and another student ended up having an altercation, which led to violence. Neither were willing to confess as to who started the fight, neither were willing to discuss the details surrounding the fight, thus resulting in both students being sent home for the day. 

Gus wasn’t sure what to make of it, especially when his daughter had been so closed off about it. 

“I’ll talk to her,” he had said, shaking the headmaster’s hand, before joining Lexa in the hallway. 

She was standing, bag slung over her shoulder, and ready to go. Obviously, she knew exactly what her punishment was. Placing a hand on her shoulder, Gus walked them out, back to his car, and opened the door for Lexa to get in. 

Once back on the road, knowing that Lexa could spend the rest of the day in his office, doing the homework that was issued already, Gus didn’t delay in driving back across town. 

“Do we need to talk about it?” he asked, glancing over quickly. 

“I shouldn’t have hit her, I won’t hit her again,” Lexa said, looking out the car window, sitting up straight, hands folded in her lap. 

“Lex, that’s not what I was asking-” Gus began to shake his head, knowing his tone was setting the wrong mood. 

“Dad, she deserved it,” Lexa explained, ploughing on to say more, but he’d heard enough. “Her friends were-” 

“Lexa, we don’t hit people.” The finality of the statement rang through the car. 

“I know.” 

“But you did, you hit someone. Was it in self-defence, or did you hit her first?” 

“I hit her first,” Lexa said, quietly, and Gus wanted to groan. He might have been able to work with self-defence, as they had been teaching Lexa to defend herself, but he couldn't do anything for outright violence. 

“How’s your face?” he asked instead. 

“Hurts,” Lexa shrugged. 

“We’ll get you some ice at the office, and food, then you can take something for the pain, okay?” Lexa hummed in response back, and then opted to sit the rest of the car journey in silence. 

“Who was it?” Gus wondered, while parking the car. He hadn’t given it much thought before, but now knew that he should be at least aware who Lexa had fought with. A lot of the parents met up for barbeques and socials, so coming face to face with the other girl’s parents was a possibility. Gus wanted them to be prepared if that ever was the case. 

“Clarke, Clarke Griffin,” Lexa answered, right before unbuckling her seatbelt and jumping out the car. 

Conversation over. 

*0*0*

The second time Dr. Woods was called down to the school, it was three weeks after the first call. Lexa’s face had healed nicely, and there hadn’t been any further incidents to suggest something else was going on with their daughter. 

Gus had explained the situation to his husband, Nyko, on the night of Lexa’s fight just what had happened to her face. As Lexa started the fight, she was instructed to apologise, via letter, to ensure it was done, and both her fathers made sure it was dropped off at the Griffin household. 

They thought that would have been the end of it. They thought that it was going to be a one off incident. 

Yet, just after his second consultation, Gus’s phone rang, and it was the school calling him down. They had also called Nyko, but had been unable to reach him; which wasn’t surprising. 

So Gus was back, standing outside the headmaster’s office, hands on hips, looking round for any sign of his daughter. Last time, she’d been right there, waiting on him, but this time, she was nowhere to be seen. 

Instead, he was joined by two other people, a man and a woman, who both looked much like he felt. Furrowed brow. Tight lips. Wide stance. Where was his daughter? 

The headmaster’s door opening revealed Lexa, and another girl who followed out behind her. The girl’s face winced when she saw the two people, and yes, that must have been her parents. 

Lexa’s face gave away nothing as she came to stand before Gus. 

From looking at the two of them, it was blatantly clear why they had been called down. Lexa was sporting another black eye, with a scratch down one cheek, and redness round the other. 

They’d had a fight. 

The other girl’s face wasn’t much better. She had a fat lip, a black eyes like Lexa’s, and a graze down her temple and cheek. 

“This time, it was self-defense,” Lexa said, looking straight at her father, and he tried not to smile at that, because it was so Lexa. 

“Have you seen a nurse?” Gus asked, leaning down a little to take a better look at her, and Lexa nodded. 

“Before you came.” 

“Good, but I’ll still get Jackson to check you out back at the office, alright?” Another nod from Lexa, and then Gus was being called on. 

“Dr. Woods, if you’d please? I think it’s appropriate that we all have a discussion. Lexa and Clarke can remain here.” 

So it was the same girl. 

Heading inside, Gus met Dr. Abby Griffin and Jake Griffin, Clarke’s parents, as they all took a seat to hear the verdict on their girls. Given that the situation hadn’t been handled, and violence had occurred again, a formal punishment was required this time around. 

Three days suspension. Each. 

It was also suggested that the parents do their best to get their daughters to behave, to put the animosity behind them, and to move on. 

Clarke’s father, Jake, seemed all aboard that idea; and immediately an offer of dinner at their house was on the table. Gus couldn’t turn it down, though he could hear his husband and daughter in the back of his head telling him that it was going to be awful. Shame. 

Accepting the offer was different from actually going, however. 

“We’re not going,” Nyko said, shaking his head. 

“We need to set a good example,” Gus replied, rubbing his temple after he relayed the conversation from that afternoon to his husband. 

“Our daughter looks like a human punching bag, and there are clearly issues where this Clarke Griffin is concerned, so no, I’m not going to subject us to a painfully uncomfortable meal.” 

“Their daughter also looks like a human punching bag,” Gus added, and Nyko threw his hands up in exasperation. 

“That’s not the point. Lexa didn’t start this one. She rightfully defended herself. That means they came and attacked her, Gus. We’re not walking her right into the lion’s den. It’s not happening.” 

Gus let out a sigh and dropped the topic. He knew when he wasn’t going to win. 

He also didn’t have anything to worry about until the Griffins tried to make formal plans. And as it turned out, they never did. 

Lexa and Clarke both served their suspensions, and returned to school, as if nothing had happened. 

*0*0*

From that point on, it would be nice to think that Lexa and Clarke learnt from their suspensions, but that was never the case. What Gus found out was that his daughter got better at hiding her injuries; as did Clarke. 

No longer did they return home with bruised lips and black eyes. It was emotional warfare. 

A dig here. A remark there. A rumour here. An insult there. They were out for blood, with no intention to spill a drop. 

That remained the cycle for years. 

Some school yard argument had turned into outright hatred of the other. Lexa threw the first punch, defending her family from Clarke’s friends who were being cruel; and the match had been lit. 

Clarke kept the fire raging by throwing a punch back, weeks later, and everything had spiralled. 

By the time they were in high school, the tactics had gotten dirty again. Field hockey was a blood sport, and it was finally dripping. Clarke’s nose broke. Lexa was on crutches for three weeks from a bad tackle. The number of bruises they both sustained was staggering. And friends had started to pick sides. 

Octavia almost hated Lexa as much as Clarke did, and her hockey skills were better, resulting in Lexa having to watch her back twice as much. 

Anya rose to the occasion, however, by being her right hand. She blocked the hits, let slip a few of her own dirty tackles, and evened the scales again. 

It was never ending. It was habitual now. 

Octavia would slam her elbow into Lexa as she passed in the hallways, and Anya would hit Clarke a little differently; flat tire on Monday, steal her textbooks on Tuesday, change her locker combination on Wednesday, alert the staff to contraband in her locker on Thursday, and another flat tire on Friday; all done with a smirk. 

Even when Clarke and Lexa weren’t inflicting their worst on the other, their friends were.  

One fight had snowballed, and it didn’t matter that the summer holidays were times of peace, as soon as they were back within the hallways of school, it started all over again. 

Lexa was glad they were nearing the end of their senior year. 

In all honesty, she was tired of fighting with Clarke Griffin. She’d been doing it for years, and she was ready to move on with her life, to never see the girl again. College was waiting, and a Clarke free life was ahead of her. It sounded like heaven. 

Before that, though, she needed to get through the last few weeks of school, of Octavia’s glares and shoves, of Anya’s scheming, of Clarke’s anger. It wasn’t long, but it was long enough, in Lexa’s eyes. 

Ten years of fighting, ten years too many, ten years too late. 

*0*0*

“You’ll never guess who is here,” Anya said, smirking round her glass, and Lexa frowned, knowing that could whoever it was could only be someone she wouldn’t like. 

Her house was full of guests, all there to celebrate her birthday, on account of her fathers never letting any occasion pass by without some get together. 

“Who?” she replied, her eyes already scanning the room, seeing her fathers, separately, her extended family, her friends, their partners, and then - wait, what? “Why is Clarke Griffin here?” 

As unofficial as the guest list was, Lexa did not recall seeing Clarke’s name on it. 

She also knew that if Clarke had been on it, her fathers would have taken her off. They weren’t exactly fond of the girl. 

“From the looks of things, she’s Raven’s plus one,” Anya answered, shrugging, and that was far too nonchalant. 

“Why is Raven here?” Lexa asked, now shooting a glare at Anya. 

“What? She wanted to come, and I want to cum later on tonight, so it’s a win win.” God, hadn’t they stopped that already? 

“I am never putting you in charge of the guest list again,” Lexa muttered, trying to take a calming breath. 

“It’s not that bad.” Really? “Anyway, Raven didn’t tell me she was bringing Clarke. So not my fault.”

“Why did you even give her a plus one?” 

“Thought she might want to bring a friend.” There was that smirk back, and now Lexa seriously doubted Anya’s innocence in all this. Lexa was going to have to be on her guard all night, lest Anya have some plan in action to torture Clarke. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she stated, shaking her head, trying to suppress it all. 

“That’s the spirit,” Anya said, her eyes watching Lexa carefully as she wiped the non-existent creases from her clothes. “Now, have fun birthday girl, I’m going to go say hi.” 

“You do not have permission to have sex in this house,” Lexa whispered quickly after her, only to hear Anya laughing back. 

“As if I’d ask for permission.” 

Great. 

She’d need to change her sheets before the night was out. 

It wasn’t exactly easy keeping an eye on Anya for the duration of the night. There were times when she vanished, and so had Raven, and it took all her willpower to just let them stay vanished. So she drunk the champagne that had been put on, and she nibbled to food set out. 

As parties went, it wasn’t a bad one. She was having a good time, even if it mostly consisted of her fathers’ friends, especially now that Anya had found a new priority. 

Escaping outside, feeling the pinch of cold air on her skin, Lexa took a deep breath. She could still hear the laughter and chatter of those inside, but with the doors shut it was less so. She could take a moment, some time to herself. 

Only, the door opened behind her, and if that was Anya coming to-

Turning, she saw that it was in fact not Anya. 

“Happy birthday,” Clarke said, and Lexa waited for the penny to drop. 

Clarke had obviously seen her go outside, had followed her, and had come to say something, do something. So what was it? 

“That it? You not going to throw an insult in there for good measure?” 

“I can if you want me to,” she shrugged, and Lexa felt herself clenching her teeth. “But I’m actually turning over a new leaf.”

“What?” This had to be a trick. 

“You know that day you hit me?” Clarke asked, fidgeting with her hands. 

“Which time?” 

“When we were eight, our very first fight,” Clarke laughed, because jeez, that list was long. She wasn’t even sure if she could recall how many times her knuckles had struck Lexa in one way or another. 

“Yes, what about it?” Lexa couldn’t forget it. She often wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t thrown that punch. 

“I didn’t know why you did it.” Lexa paused, frowning, and waited for more because she didn’t quite grasp what Clarke had said. “I mean, I remember telling you to back off and leave my friends alone, but I didn’t know why you were yelling at them.” 

Oh. 

“What do you want me to say, Clarke?” Lexa asked, standing taller, shutting all emotional reactions to that memory down. 

“My dad died,” Clarke then said, and the new topic might have made little sense to anyone else, but it was the penny dropping. 

“I know, I heard.” Lexa couldn’t offer her apologies, because she was certain Clarke wouldn’t accept them. 

“They were insulting your dads. They called them fa-” Clarke cut herself off, closing her eyes and biting her bottom lip. “If anyone had insulted my dad, I would have done the same. I would have hit them, too.” 

“You didn’t insult them.” 

“No, but I stood in front of Murphy, Finn and Echo, and I defended them. I basically approved of what they said. All this time- all these years- have you- do you think-” Her words were descending into nothing, broken sentences, sharp gasps of air as the wave of grief hit. 

Lexa stepped forward, against better judgement, and reached out. Her arms came round Clarke’s body, pulling her into her embrace, and Clarke’s arms clenched at the back of her shirt, burying her head into her shoulder. 

She was trying so hard not to cry on Lexa’s clean, crisp, white shirt, but tears were falling, and it was getting hard to breath, and this felt like full body sobbing. Lexa had no qualms about Clarke crying on her, though. Drycleaning was a thing for a reason. 

In all their years, in all their fighting, this was actually the first time Lexa had seen Clarke cry. Yes, she’d teared up once or twice, but it was nothing like this. Her body was shaking, her head buried into Lexa, and the sound of her, Lexa could almost feel the pain she was going through. 

Lexa’s dad had told her the news, one night over the summer before senior year started. He had the paper out in front of him, but stopped when she came in. Jake Griffin. Horrible accident. Dead.

The words hadn’t quite registered. The only thing that did was Griffin, and it sunk in that Clarke’s dad, her dad, had died. 

Foolishly, Lexa thought things might have been different after that. Like at the start of the school year, they might have buried the hatchet, but that hadn’t been the case. Not one bit. 

Now, though, with her arms offering comfort where she’d only offered pain before, this felt like the truce they needed. 

Clarke wiped her face with her hands, stepped away from Lexa, and put space between them. She wanted to see Lexa when she spoke, wanted to gauge her reaction, and she couldn’t do that when buried into the crook of her neck. 

“Did you...did you think we hated you because your dads are gay, because you’re gay?” Clarke asked, pulling together all she could to inquire. 

Lexa’s pause almost was enough to set off another round of tears, with them welling up in her eyes. 

“Logically, it made sense. Was that not the case?” Lexa’s voice was back to formal, to clipped, to guarded. 

Clarke’s hands came up, cupping Lexa’s cheeks, amazed that she hadn’t been pushed away by this point, and she swallowed the lump in her throat. 

“No, it wasn’t. You...I’m sorry.” 

It wasn’t the first time Lexa had heard those words from Clarke’s lips. They had been said so many times, it was like a well rehearsed play. I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry for scratching you. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry. 

But this, this apology held sincerity that the others lacked. 

“I’m sorry, too,” she replied, dropping her head slightly. “I shouldn’t have hit you that day.” 

“No, you should have told me what they said, so I could have helped you beat the crap out of them,” Clarke joked, painfully. 

“If only,” Lexa murmured, thinking of how things could have been different. 

“I don’t have any problem with you being gay, or for your fathers being gay, Lex.” Clarke swallowed the lump back down again, ploughing on, because she needed to get this out. “I had no idea they’d said that. And I didn’t know you thought that we harassed you because of your sexuality. God, Lexa, I’m bi, I would never-” she cut herself off again, taking a shaky breath, before continuing. “I’m so sorry. You’ve only been defending yourself for all these years, and I- we- you didn’t deserve any of it.” 

The breathlessness of her words, the shaking of her hands against Lexa’s cheeks, spoke of nerves and regrets. 

“Truce?” Lexa murmured, reaching up, cupping Clarke’s hands in her own and bringing them down between their bodies, where she held them in her own. “I mean, we’re graduating in a few weeks, we’ll never see each other again. Least we can do is see the year out on even terms.” 

“I’d like that.” Giving Lexa’s hands a squeeze, she let out a shy smile. “Some birthday you must be having,” she added, rolling her eyes at herself, and Lexa smiled in return. 

As birthdays went, this one actually wasn’t half bad. 

*0*0*

This time, when Gustus went to attend the campus, it was because Lexa was graduating, and he had seats with his husband to watch her do just that. There were no black eyes, no busted lips, and Clarke Griffin didn’t even cross his mind. 

She did cross Lexa’s, however. 

The truce had lasted, and while Anya had taken some convincing, claiming Clarke couldn’t have been that ignorant all these years, it remained in place. They graduated without one last dig at the other, without any physical altercations, and even made it to the after party without blood being drawn. 

Clarke had been different, since Lexa’s birthday. She’d been friendly, and maybe it was just because Lexa had never been on the receiving end of that before that it was weird, but it was really taking some time to get used to. 

She had smiled at her in the hallways. She had said hi, hello, hey, goodbye, see ya, speak to you later, and genuinely meant it. There was no sarcastic bite to her words, and Lexa was lost by it all. 

The truce was to put them on even footing, to right their wrongs. She hadn’t expected them to go on and be friends. But that’s what Clarke seemed to be trying to do, and it had Lexa all sorts of confused. 

It wasn’t that she couldn’t be friends with Clarke, it was just...Clarke was Clarke. 

Shaking her head, at that ridiculous thought, Lexa took another sip of the beer Anya had given her. They were at Wells’ house, drinking his fancy liquor and beer, and celebrating the fact that they were now free from high school. 

Clarke was there. Of course. And Lexa couldn’t keep her eyes off her. 

They’d always had to keep the other on their radar, to ensure the other wasn’t up to no good, and that habit was hard to quit. Or that’s what Lexa was saying to herself as she watched Clarke dance with Octavia. 

They were close, closer than how she’d dance with Anya, and that comment she made about being bisexual was sort of making sense. Maybe that’s why Octavia had hated Lexa so much. Maybe they were dating. 

“They’re not dating,” Anya said, having listened to Lexa’s theory, thirty minutes later, while they sipped god only knows what out in the back yard. 

“How do you know? For sure, how do you know?” 

Anya’s smarmy smirk told Lexa she wasn’t going to like her answer, but yet she was desperate to hear it anyway. 

“Octavia has a thing for Raven. They occasionally hook up.” That didn’t explain the smirk. “ _We_ _all_ occasionally hook up.” 

“You and Octavia?” Lexa spluttered, turning her head abruptly.  

“And Raven,” Anya added, as if that was the important piece of information here. 

“You’re fucking with me.” 

“Nope. Been fuckng them, though,” she grinned, and please. 

“I thought you hated Octavia.” 

“I do. Sort of. Hate sex. It’s a lot of fun. You should have done that with Clarke.” That made Lexa do a double take again. 

“We weren’t like that.”

“Really? You seriously telling me that you didn’t at least think about it, once?” Shut up Anya. “That’s what I thought,” she grinned, taking Lexa’s silence as victory. 

Anya retreated back inside, to get more drinks, she said, but Lexa assumed when she didn’t return she’d found Raven, or Octavia. And seriously, that was still baffling her. How had she missed that? What else had she missed? 

“Hey,” Clarke teetered, sliding down next to Lexa, offering her a cup of whatever Monty had been handing out earlier. “Hope you don’t mind the company.” 

“Not at all,” Lexa said, taking a drink, watching Clarke out the side of her eye. 

“If someone had told me that I’d be sitting side by side with you, drinking, on graduation night, I would have thought them crazy. And, I probably would have asked which one of us was bleeding and bruised.” That made Lexa smile, against better judgement. 

“What part is unbelievable, the drinking, the truce, or that it’s me?” 

“All three?” Clarke replied, turning to look at her. “I mean, I didn’t think we’d ever...I’m glad we patched things up.” 

“Me, too.” She spoke honestly, nodding. 

“You know what, though?” asked Clarke, and Lexa waited. “I want to go back to the start, I want to do it all again, I want to get it right.”

“Hmm?” 

“I’ve spent so long fighting you, when I should have been...we should have...I want to be eight years old, standing on that playground, and get it right. We could have...ten years of fighting, of hating each other....” 

“Clarke,” Lexa said, trying to pull her from the swirling thoughts of regret. 

“We could have been friends.” Apparently she wasn’t done playing hindsight. “We could have been best friends. We could have…” 

“We could have what?” Lexa asked, taking another drink, getting bolder. 

“You’re very pretty, Lexa,” Clarke said, looking straight at her, switching the subject quickly. “And I’ve always known that, but I thought you were vile.” Well, nothing like honesty to keep things lively. “But you’re not, are you?” 

Lexa wasn’t sure how to answer that. 

“You’re actually…You’re….You’re going to be my biggest regret, Lexa Woods. I just know.” Clarke leaned over, cupped Lexa’s cheek in her hand, and placed a soft kiss to her skin. It was only a few seconds of contact, but it had Lexa closing her eyes, and embracing it. 

Then Clarke was getting to her feet, brushing down the dirt off her clothes, and heading inside. She did it silently. She did it without looking back. She did it with poise and composure, all of which Lexa had lost. 

It was only when the door had shut behind Clarke that Lexa realised the exact same thing; Clarke Griffin was going to be her biggest regret, her biggest ‘what if?’, and there was nothing she could do about it. 

*0*0*


End file.
